Anglers finding ice fishing to be a challenge

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BIG RAPIDS — Count Rodney’s Jeff Greene as among the ice anglers not all too happy with the fishing success he hasn’t had lately.

Greene recently returned from a 2 1/2-week trip to New Zealand and decided to test his luck ice fishing at Hillview.

“I was there for two hours and I never caught any fish,” Greene said. “It’s kind of the doldrums this time of winter that you just don’t catch any fish.”

As of last week, there was plenty of ice, however.

“There’s 18 inches of ice,” Greene said. “It takes you a long time to drill a hole. When you have 18 inches of ice and it says in the 30s at night, it takes a long time. We’ll have good ice for another two, maybe three weeks.”

But as of this week, with the rain and warmer weather, the ice is likely to have shrunk and anglers need to be extra careful/

“There’s not a whole lot going on,” he said. “Not many people are chasing squirrels and rabbits. Nice weather is coming up and I expect people will get out. But there’s a lot of snow. Access will be tough. When the ice melts. It will help trappers for beavers and otters.”

On wildlife survival, “on turkeys and deer if they hold on to their mortality, they should be OK,” Richardson said.